


Edward Elric's Guide to Quilting a Patchwork Family

by AVMabs



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: (kiddie party), Alternate Universe - Nanny, Big Brothers, Birthday, FMA Secret Santa 2018, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Lighter than it sounds, Loss of Parent(s), Minor Injuries, Party, i'm talking skinned knees
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-28 21:50:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17190938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AVMabs/pseuds/AVMabs
Summary: Upon starting his search for a job, Edward Elric had expected to end up in retail, not as the nanny for a recently bereaved family.  He's never been able to turn down a plea for help, though, and he thinks this family might just need him to answer.





	Edward Elric's Guide to Quilting a Patchwork Family

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Manalfedz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Manalfedz/gifts).



> This was written for Manalfedz, who asked for Ed being a good big brother to the people he meets!
> 
> NB: British words are used in place of American - plaster means band-aid and flat means apartment

Al is about to start University when Ed realises that he can’t pay for both.  Accordingly, he does what any good student in need of money does and scours the internet for job postings.  To his horror and dismay, he _fails_ the preliminary tests for every grocery store job he tries and can’t take the full-time jobs he gets calls about without missing tutoring sessions.  He’s about to give up and apply for another loan when he gets a call.

“Hello?” he says, distracted.

“Hello,” comes a polite, female voice.  “I hope you don’t mind – your number was on one of the job-postings websites, and I could really use someone.”

“What do you need?” asks Ed, scribbling down an answer to a physics question.

There’s silence for a moment.  “I need a nanny,” she says.

Ed wrinkles his nose.  “I don’t know if I’m the right person,” he says.  “You sure you read the right profile?”

“I can’t find anyone else available,” she says, then pauses.  “And you’ve come recommended.”

Ed pricks up at that.  “Recommended?”  He can’t imagine who would recommend him for nanny work, of all things.

“Yes,” says the woman.  “One of my husband’s old friends – Roy Mustang – said he thought you would be a good fit for the job.”

Ed is absolute, one-hundred percent, going to pull apart Mustang’s office in their next tutorial.  The guy will have to rewrite his research, and he’ll just have to _deal with it_.  “You can tell Mustang…” he starts.

“ _Please_ ,” says the woman, effectively silencing him.  “Roy was one of my husband’s closest friends and I – I trust his judgement.” She sounds wobbly, and Ed feels like he’s committed a felony by starting at her.

Ed sighs.  “Does your husband not know anyone?”

“My husband died last month.”

Oh.  Well, now Ed definitely feels like he’s committed a felony.  He rubs his forehead.  “How about a probation period?” he asks, because he can’t just refuse a recent widow outright.

The woman perks up after that, and Ed learns that her name is Gracia and her daughter has just started Kindergarten.  Ed’s responsibilities are to be picking her up from school, reading with her, and making her dinner before Gracia returns home.  That’s reasonable, Ed thinks.  He can do that.

*

He and Al are on their way back from the library when Ed turns to Al.  “By the way,” he says, “I got a job.”

“Oh,” says Al, sounding slightly surprised.  “What kind of job?”

Ed draws himself up to his full height.  “I’m a nanny,” he declares.

Al chokes, stifling it immediately to avoid hurting Ed’s feelings.  “That’s great!” he says in the least sincere tone of voice Ed has ever heard.

Ed huffs.  “She’s a _widow_ ,” he says.  “I couldn’t just say no.” 

“No,” agrees Al.  “You couldn’t.”

*

Ed arrives in the school’s playground at exactly five minutes to three.  It’s filled to the brim with parents already, huddled off in their own little cliques.  A woman who looks too old to be a mother and too young to be a grandmother approaches him.  He tenses.  He hadn’t realised this job would involve talking to other grown-ups, too.

“Hello, there,” says the woman, and Ed immediately realises from her voice that she must be absolutely loaded, so he smiles and nods, lest he reveal from the outset that he is a bumpkin and be stripped of his job.  “I haven’t seen you around before, are you someone’s older brother?”

Ed shifts his weight uncomfortably from foot to foot.  “I’m Mrs Hughes’s new nanny.”

At that, the woman’s expression grows sad.  “Oh,” she says.  “Yes, I suppose she will have had to go back to work, after…”  She trails off.  “Elicia is a very sweet little girl.  Very bright, but she’s not been energetic since… well…”

Ed nods, not wanting to press the Hughes’ personal situation out of a stranger. 

The woman babbles on about one thing or another, jumping from topic to topic until a young woman walks out into the playground, ushering 30 kindergarteners behind her.  Ed realises with a start that he doesn’t even know what Elicia _looks like_.  He wanders forwards anyway, because he doesn’t really have any better options.

“Oh,” says the posh woman.  “There’s my Selim.”  She strides towards a child with a strange birthmark on his forehead and takes his hand.  Ed watches the young woman tick Selim’s name off a list.

Soon enough, all the children except one have dispersed with their parents, and just Ed and Elicia, and the teacher are left.  Elicia is half-hidden behind the teacher’s legs, and she seems to shrink further as Ed approaches the teacher.

“Hi,” he says awkwardly.  “I’m Edward Elric, I’m supposed to be…”

The teacher cuts him off by rummaging around in a folder until she finds an information sheet.  “Right!” she says.  “Elicia’s nanny – yes, Mrs Hughes had told us there would be someone else picking Elicia up from now on.”  She pauses.  “Go on, Elicia,” she says.

Elicia slowly phases towards Ed, eyes wide and nervous.  Ed gives a smile that he’s only half sure is comforting and holds his hand out to her.  “Ready to go home?”

Elicia gives a tiny nod and clutches Ed’s hand with her own tiny one.  They take the bus home, managing to get seats by the skin of their teeth.  Ed makes a few well-intentioned efforts at conversation, but Elicia is withdrawn and gives little more than monosyllabic answers.

They alight the bus at a block of high-rise flats.  “Hey,” says Ed.  “Remind me which number flat you’re in, again?”

Elicia chews on her thumbnail.  “21a,” she mumbles.

Together, they walk into the lift.  Ed fumbles in his pocket for the key Mrs Hughes has sent and finds it just as the lift lurches to a halt.  “Come on then,” says Ed.

The Hughes flat is modest but not small – the sort of place that expectant parents with stable jobs search for.  There’s a photo on the end table in the hallway.  Elicia is in the centre of her parents with a toothy grin on her face and a paper crown on her head, a cake in front of her.  Mrs Hughes, whom Ed realises with a jolt is the spitting image of Elicia, stands proudly to the right of her daughter.  On the left, with an arm slung over Gracia’s shoulder and a wide smile in the same vein as Elicia’s, is a bespectacled man with dark hair and square glasses.  Ed blinks at the man, trying to think where he looks familiar.

He smiles down at Elicia, who has just about managed to remove both of her shoes and is now struggling with the zip on her coat.  He kneels in front of her and pulls it down.  “Is that photo from your birthday?” asks Ed.

Elicia nods.

“Awesome,” says Ed.  “When was it?”

Elicia sucks on her lower lip.  “January,” she says quietly.

Ed starts.  It’s February now, so Mr Hughes must have quite literally died within the past month.  Ed does not voice this to Elicia.  “Cool,” he says.  “My birthday is in January too.  I was born on the sixth.”

Recognition lights in Elicia’s eyes.  “Me too,” she says with more enthusiasm than Ed has heard from her yet.

“Wow!” says Ed and doesn’t know what else to say.

*

A week into his nannying, Ed has not been able to yield much more than autopilot from Elicia: she does her homework and eats her dinner but little more than that.  Ed sighs about it as he makes the trip up to Dr Mustang’s office for his tutorial.

“Elric,” greets Mustang, as Ed walks into his office without knocking.

Ed drops himself onto the sofa.  “So,” he says, “you thought I’d be a good nanny.”

Mustang shrugs.  “You were looking for a job and I knew about a vacancy.” 

Ed huffs and rests his legs on Mustang’s coffee table, adjusting his prosthetic so that it sits more comfortably aside the one picture Mustang keeps.  He glances at it as he does, and his eyes widen.  There, in a blue military uniform with his arm slung over Mustang’s shoulder and a toothy grin further lit by two green eyes, is the same man as the one in Elicia’s birthday picture. 

“That’s Mr Hughes,” says Ed.

“We served together,” says Mustang.  “Now, tell me about the role of proteins in motor neurotransmitters.”

*

Two days later, Elicia comes out of school with a project assignment.

“What’s it about?” asks Ed.

Elicia swings her legs back and forth at the kitchen table.  “Body,” she says.

Ed probes.  “What about the body?”

Elicia tugs on a strand of hair that’s come loose from her ponytail.  “What’s in it.”

“Okay,” says Ed, slowly, not quite sure how to progress from this point.  He opens Elicia’s project book in front of her and points at the page.  “What’s in the body?” he asks.

“Arms,” says Elicia.

“Good,” says Ed.

Elicia says nothing else, and Ed sits in silence for half a minute before realising that’s all he’s going to get. 

“What else?  Give me three more things.”

“Legs,” says Elicia.  She pauses.  “Head and teeth.”

“Great!” says Ed.  “Why don’t you write those down?”

Elicia does, in large, rickety handwriting.  She pauses and looks up at Ed.  “Miss Tomlin said to write how many of each.”

“Okay,” says Ed.  “How many are there of each?”

Elicia worries her lip.  “Most people have two arms and two legs, but you only have one arm and one leg.  Why?”

Ed sighs and pastes a smile onto his face.  “I got hurt when I was little and couldn’t keep my arm and leg, but nearly everyone has two.”

Elicia seems satisfied with his answer and nods resolvedly.

*

Everything is going as swimmingly as humanly possible until one day, on the way out of the playground, Elicia trips over someone’s bookbag and scrapes her knee.  Ed is on the ground next to her in a flash.

“Hey,” he says.  “It’s okay, are you hurt?”

Elicia gives a little sob and nods.

Ed feels his heartrate speeding up.  He’s going to be fired, now – oh, God.  “Let me see?” he asks.

Elicia presents her elbow and knee to him.  Her knee is lightly grazed, but her elbow is skinned – not seriously, but enough that Ed can understand how it might scare an adult to tears, let alone a little girl. 

Ed gives a sympathetic hiss through his teeth.  “Oh dear,” he says as kindly as he can.  “That must be sore – shall we go inside and get you a bandage?”

Elicia’s lip wobbles as she takes Ed’s hand and lets him lead her into the school building.  The nurse’s office is, thankfully, directly to their left as they enter.  Ed knocks on the door.  An ageing man with a receding hairline opens it.

“What is it?” he says gruffly.

Ed blinks, wondering how this man is the school nurse.  “Um,” he stammers, trying to pretend he isn’t intimidated.  “She fell.”

The man sighs and ushers them in, sitting Elicia down on a child-sized chair and leaving Ed to stand.  Elicia is still taking shuddering breaths. 

“Nasty,” says the man, and gives Elicia’s shoulder a pat. 

Elicia’s face crumbles further.

“Enough of that,” says the nurse.  “Why are you crying like that?”

Elicia sobs harder.  “What if I – can’t keep my arm.”

The nurse blinks and his eyes widen.  Ed feels his mouth falling open.

“Why would you lose your arm?” he says firmly.

Elicia takes a couple of jolting breaths before she’s able to speak.  “Ed got hurt and he lost his arm.”

Well, shit.

The nurse rubs his temples.  “You’ve got to get hurt a lot worse than this to lose a limb, kiddo.”

“ _How_ worse?” gulps Elicia. 

The nurse gives a deep, bone-aching sigh.  “Sometimes people get hurt so badly they can even see their bones, and they still don’t lose their arms.”

That’s… frank, Ed thinks, but it calms Elicia.  She sniffs and looks resolvedly into the nurse’s face with large, watery eyes.  “Alright,” she says.  She pauses.  “How hurt do you have to be to… not be here anymore?”

Oh.  That’s – yeah, Ed can see why that might be something Elicia is worried about. 

“You’re the Hughes kid, huh?” says the nurse. 

Elicia nods, looking into his eyes.

“Even worse than losing an arm,” says the nurse.

*

Ed sits across the table from Al, chin resting in on the table front of him so that he looks like a kicked dog.  “I screwed up,” he says.

“You?” says Al, teasingly.

“Yeah, me.”

Al doesn’t give him a response, but carries on looking expectantly at Ed.

“Elicia asked how I lost my arm and leg, so I told her I got hurt.”  He rubs his temples.  “They told her the same thing when her dad died, so now she thinks that every time someone gets hurt, something terrible will happen.”

“Oh,” says Al.  “Well, you can’t exactly condition her into getting hurt to fix that.”

“Obviously not,” says Ed drily.  “But I can’t let her think that grazing her elbow is a death sentence, either.”

Al hums in thought. 

*

Al thinks of a solution, just like Al always does when people are thrown into the equation.  Ed is thinking about the best way to put Al’s fix to the test when Mrs Hughes telephones.

“Is everything okay?” asks Ed.

“Oh,” says Mrs Hughes.  “Well – yes, but…”

“What is it?” Ed’s own heart is racing with the implications of an unexpected phone call.

“My landlord is coming to do some checks on Saturday and he thinks that he might need to mess with the fuse box – it would be better if Elicia wasn’t in the house.  You can say no, this isn’t in your contract, but…”

“I’ll take her,” says Ed quickly.  “My brother will be there too, if that’s okay.”

Mrs Hughes confirms it’s fine and hangs up.

*

Mrs Hughes arrives on Saturday morning with Elicia’s hand clasped in her own.  Ed opens the door with a grin.  “Hey, Elicia,” he says.  “You got everything you need?”

Elicia nods, but it still takes coaxing to extricate her out of Mrs Hughes’s care and into his own.

The door closes, and Al walks into the hallway, balancing on his cane.  “Hi, Elicia!” he says.  “I’m Ed’s little brother.  He calls me silly, but you can just call me Al.”

Elicia hides her mouth behind her hands and gives a little giggle.  “Did you lose your leg too?” asks Elicia, looking at Al’s cane.

“No,” says Al with a smile.  “My muscles don’t work properly, so I use this.”

Elicia seems satisfied with the answer and lets Ed usher her through to the kitchen table.  She fishes for her project book and sets it out in front of her.  “Miss Tomlin says this week I should talk about what the body can do.”

They get through ‘walking, jumping, singing, dancing and skipping’ when Al glances up and meets Ed’s eye.  Ed nods.

“There are some things the body is able to do on its own, too,” says Al.  “Can you think of any of them?”

Elicia furrows her brow.  “It poops.”

Al chokes on his water.  “Yes, it – it does do that.”

Elicia writes it down, and Ed supposes he’ll just have to explain it to Miss Tomlin himself.  Elicia chews her lip.  “It puts my grown-up teeth in.”

“Yup!” says Al, cheerfully.  “There’s something else, too.”

Elicia bites her thumb and doesn’t say anything.

“Ed told me you scraped your elbow last week,” he says.  “Have you had a look at it?”

Elicia gives a tiny nod.  “Mummy took the bandage off yesterday.”

“What does it look like now,” urges Al. 

“It’s kind of yellowy,” says Elicia thoughtfully.  “And all hard.”

Al smiles.  “That’s called a scab, and it helps make your elbow better because it keeps germs out and lets your body make new skin.”

Elicia nods and begins to write, then stops.  “What do I write?”

“You could write heal,” says Al.

Elicia chews on the outside of her thumbnail.  “We have to learn something new and show the class on Monday,” she says.

“Well,” says Ed, “sometimes when you get hurt, your body needs a bit of help to start healing.  We could show you how to do that, so you can show your class.”

With Elicia’s consent, Al picks up a red marker and draws a line on his hand.  “Let’s pretend this is a little cut,” he says.  “When you get a cut, what’s the first thing your mummy does?”

“She kisses it,” says Elicia.

Ed has to turn away to keep from laughing. 

“Right!” says Al enthusiastically.  “So, the first thing to do if someone gets hurt is give the cut a kiss – because it makes them feel better!  What next?”

Elicia thinks for a minute, thumping her pencil against her project book.  “Cleans it with wipes.”  She pauses.  “They hurt.”

“They do hurt,” Al agrees, “but that’s because they’re helping to clean out any nasty stuff.”  He pauses.  “If we wipe my hand, the pen will come off, so let’s skip that.” 

“What should I do now?” asks Elicia. 

Al grins and produces a pack of sticking plasters from his pocket.  “You give them a plaster.  It makes them feel even better if you have a choice of plasters for them.”  He leans forward and takes a low, conspiratorial voice.  “Ed likes using frog plasters best.”

Elicia nearly cracks a smile, then.  “And that makes you feel better!” 

All in all, when Mrs Hughes comes to collect Elicia, Ed can’t help feeling like he’s done just a little bit of good.

*

Elicia spends the next few months slowly coming out of her shell, and Ed balances his work so well that he forgets there was ever a time before he was a nanny.  He can’t think what he was doing with his vast expanses of free time before that.  (In truth, he’s been getting an hour or two less of sleep each night, and he works through lunchtime – but who’s being pernickety?)

It’s all falling into a standard routine until he climbs the stairs to his supervision with Mustang.  Ed shouts him down over the ethical drawbacks of stem cell research and stands proudly in the wake of his victory.  He’s getting ready to leave when Mustang speaks up.

“Just a second,” he says.

Ed turns on his heel, giving an exaggerated sigh.  “What do you want _now_?”

Mustang is silent for a moment.  “You’ve got the night off Elicia, right?  Come to the graveyard with me.”

Ed makes a face.  “That’s morbid,” he says, “and the sort of thing you should be doing with, like, a friend.”

Mustang keeps his expression carefully neutral.  “Hawkeye has the flu, and there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

Ed snorts.  “What, you’re introducing me to the guy you get all your flowers from, cheapskate?”

“Elric…” warns Mustang.

Ed throws up his hands.  “Alright, _sheesh_ ,” he says.  “I’ll come, just don’t keep me.”

He leaves, then, but not before hearing a muttered “you buy a whole van of flowers _once_ ” coming through the door.

*

Ed and Mustang walk through the graveyard together in an awkward silence.  Eventually, Mustang turns.

“You don’t seem creeped out,” he says.

Ed shrugs and waves a hand.  “I study natural sciences.”

They fall into silence again after that, until Mustang stops in front of a grave.  “We’re here,” he says. 

Ed stares at the grave.  Somebody has already been here; there’s a simple bouquet of white and lilac flowers on the ground in front of it, sitting on top of a piece of paper.  He lets his eyes drift up to the name on the headstone.

“It’s Elicia’s dad, huh?”

“Yeah,” says Mustang.  “It’s been six months, and I just thought…”  He trails off.  “This is stupid, you can go if you want.”

“It’s fine,” says Ed.  “You don’t want to stand and grieve alone – I get that.”  It’s not a lie.  He doesn’t like visiting his mum on his own either. 

Mustang swallows.  “Thanks.”

Ed examines the lettering on the grave, doing the maths for himself.  “He was 29,” he says.

“Yeah,” says Mustang.  “Pretty young.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” says Ed, but there’s no malice in it.  “Can I ask how…”

“It happened?” says Mustang, cutting Ed off.  “Gunshot wound to the lung – organised crime ring.”  He pauses.  “They were kind enough to leave a note letting us know it was deliberate,” he says drily.

Ed’s mouth dries out.  “Is Elicia safe?”

Mustang’s expression softens.  “She’s fine, kid.  They’re after my research is all.”  He laughs humourlessly.  “I guess there’s something about drug chemistry that attracts crime rings.  Can’t imagine what.” 

Ed’s mouth sets into a line.  It isn’t fair, really, and it twists his insides that there’s absolutely nothing he can do about that now. 

After a moment’s pause, Mustang kneels in front of the grave and pulls something out of his inside pocket.  He lifts the flowers to slide the card in front of it and stops.  He gives a breathy, wet laugh.

Ed widens his eyes.  “You okay?”

Mustang peels the piece of paper off the ground and hands it to Ed, hand over his eyes.  “Look at this,” he says thickly.

Ed takes the paper and barks out a laugh before he can stop himself.  It’s one of Elicia’s drawings, adorned with labels and descriptions that are evidently supposed to keep Mr Hughes abreast of the happenings on earth while he’s been gone.

At the top of the page is a man emerging from a cloud with comically spiky hair with two squares around his eyes and a camera in his polydactyl hands.  An arrow clarifies that this is ‘DADDY’.  On the far left is a lady with flowers all around her, and the label ‘MUMMY WENT BACK TO WORK DOING BOT ANNIE’.  Moving along, Ed finds a much shorter figure with two spiky bunches of hair.  Several body parts are drawn around her – an arm here and a leg there, floating around in the air.  ‘I GOT AN A IN MY PROJECT ON THE BODY IT WAS FUN’.  Ed moves along one more person and stops.

The jacket is more orange than red, and his braid is somewhere between a ponytail and a cluster of lines, but it’s undoubtedly him.  ‘GOT A NANNY.  WOULD LIKE HIM TO BE MY BIG BROTHER.’  He gasps out a little laugh. 

“Thanks, kid,” says Mustang, pulling himself into a stand.  “He’d appreciate that.”

“Right,” says Ed, and carefully replaces Elicia’s drawing under Mustang’s photograph.

They begin to wend their way back through the graveyard, silence having come to a comfort through their mutual understanding.  Still, Ed can sense that Mustang wants to say something.

“Spit it out,” he says.

Mustang sighs.  “You were the same age when your mother died, weren’t you?”

“Yeah,” says Ed.  “Why?”

“Do you forget her?”

Oh.  Ed shakes his head.  “No,” he says.  “It’s – hard to describe.  I look at pictures of her and see things I don’t think I remember, like how her eyes had shadows under them, or sometimes in old letters she’s rude or blunt, and I don’t remember her being blunt, but it’s not…”  He pauses.  “It’s not that I’m forgetting, it’s just that I only knew her through being my mum, not as my dad’s wife or the grocer’s daughter.”

“Right,” says Mustang.  “So, she won’t forget?”

“I don’t think so,” says Ed.

*

“Hello, Ed?”

Ed readjusts his grip on the phone.  “Is everything okay, Mrs Hughes?”

“Oh, yes,” says Mrs Hughes.  “I was just wondering if you might come by and watch Elicia for a couple of hours on Wednesday.”

School and work are both finished for winter, and Ed hasn’t seen Elicia in nearly a week and a half.  He wouldn’t admit it to Al, but he misses her, just a little bit.  Wednesday is… the 6th of January, right.  “Of course!” says Ed.  He didn’t have any plans for his birthday anyway.

When Ed leaves the flat to watch Elicia, Al is suspiciously ‘out’ with no added details.  Ed shrugs and supposes that if he really, really has to, he can afford to help Al look after a cat.  He walks down the hallway until he reaches the Hughes’s flat and rings the doorbell.  There’s a strange scuffling sound from inside the door.

Mrs Hughes opens it, looking harried, but excited.  At least six children the same age as Elicia are packed into the flat, but that isn’t what makes Ed’s jaw drop open.  Standing, scattered lightly through the children, are _Ed’s_ friends: Al, Ling from the university – even Winry, who must have travelled miles from her internship to get here.

“I…” breathes Ed.

Mrs Hughes smiles warmly.  “Elicia let slip that your birthday is today, too, and I thought…”

“Thank you,” says Ed, still half-warped with shock.  “This is…”

A pair of footsteps come running into the hallway, carrying Elicia with them.  “Big brother Ed!” she shouts.

“Hey, kid!” says Ed, warmly.  “Heard someone had a birthday today… let me think…” 

Mrs Hughes chuckles behind him. 

“It’s us, silly!” says Elicia.

She takes him into the kitchen, where Al, Ling and Winry immediately gravitate to him.  “Al,” says Ed, playing up his exasperation.

Al grins sheepishly.  “Sorry, Ed,” he says.  “We wanted it to be a surprise.”

“It was,” says Ed.  “I didn’t even think… I thought you were out feeding a stray, or something.” 

Al opens his mouth to speak when there’s a clatter behind them, and a child begins wailing.  Ed whirls around and Gracia hurtles into the room.  Elicia stops in place, eyes widening, and then takes a deep breath and marches over to the fallen child. 

“Show me,” she says to the boy, whom Ed vaguely recognises as the child with the strange birthmark whose mother he had spoken to on his first day as Elicia’s nanny.

The boy carefully displays a skinned knee, sobbing as he goes.  “ _Hurts_ ,” he says.

“It’s okay,” says Elicia.  She leans forward and kisses the boy’s knee.  He stares at her with a mixture of wonder and absolute confusion.  Straightening up, she turns to Mrs Hughes.  “Wipes, please, mummy.”

Mrs Hughes gives a startled blink and hurries over to the kitchen cabinets, producing a pack of antiseptic wipes and a box of sticking plasters.  She sets them next to Elicia and begins to kneel herself to start treating the little boy’s wound, but Elicia already has a wipe in her hand when Mrs Hughes reaches the floor.  “This part hurts,” says Elicia, “but it’s good for you, so don’t complain.”

Al chokes out a laugh and takes a sip of water to stifle it. 

Mrs Hughes reaches out and gives the boy’s shoulder a comforting squeeze.  “It’s alright – it _is_ good for you, but it can be very sore, so it’s okay if you want to cry.”

Elicia gives the boy’s knee a business-like wipe and then provides a cursory pat of comfort to the unbroken skin around the wound as the boy cries harder.  “What kind of plaster would you like?” she asks. 

The boy sniffles and draws his hands over his face.  “I like the dinosaur ones.”

Elicia turns to Mrs Hughes.  “Mummy?”

“Oh, dear,” says Mrs Hughes.  “I only have plain plasters – is that…”

“Hey,” says Ed, taking a step forward as the boy’s face begins to scrunch up in disappointment.  “How about we give you a plain plaster and _draw_ dinosaurs on it – then you even get to choose which ones!”

The little boy stares up at him.  “Okay,” he agrees.

Elicia picks out a plaster which is entirely too big for the wound and sticks it over the boy’s knee, then scampers over to a pot of pens on the worksurface.  She comes back with a handful and passes one to Ed. 

“What’s your favourite dinosaur?” asks Ed.

The boy bites the tip of his finger.  “I like the pachycephalosaur,” he says.

Ed blinks in surprise.  That’s unexpected.  Still, he takes the pen and draws a very crude pachycephalosaur while Elicia adorns it with stars.  Soon enough, the boy has a fully-decorated plaster, and he’s almost stopped crying. 

Mrs Hughes glances a hand over Ed’s shoulder.  “I need to go and let his mother know he’s had a scrape – could you watch the kids?”

“Sure can,” says Ed, and rises, leaving the boy in Elicia’s very capable hands.  He looks around at all the kids.  “Who wants to play a game?” he asks enthusiastically.

The children all seem to alight in a simultaneous cheer.

“Glad to hear it,” says Ed.  “This is one of my favourite games, and the rules are simple – my brother,” he gestures at Al, “will go and sit down in a chair, and you all have to get him to give you his cane without touching him, the cane, or his chair, understand?”  He’s met with nods and giggles.  “Good, the first person to get the cane wins one of Al’s jokes.”

The children break off into a rabble, all trying to get the cane.  It’s loud enough for Mrs Hughes to hear from the bedroom, and – putting the phone down – she smiles to herself.  If, when her husband died, it had left a void where all the love he’d had to go around had been, she thinks that the new nanny might singlehandedly be filling it.


End file.
